Storyteller: The Beginning
by Gatherer of Tales
Summary: Carl Warren, a college student, lived a boring life until the due date of his rough draft for his creative writing class. What happens from there gets stranger by the moment as his work begins unfolding in front of him in real life.


**Storyteller**

"Staring over the edge of the rock face gave him a strange respite from the world. He purposely kicked a rock over to see where it would fall, intrigued as to what would happen to it. As it tumbled he contemplated what the next few days held in store for him. He needed some time to wrap his head around the situation and to make the preparations for such a journey. Alone and without a definite plan he stood little chance of surviving the onslaught he knew he faced. It had been three days since she left, and for him to spend anymore time pondering his next move was senseless. Now was the time for action, for something to be done instead of moping on the past. Besides, there would be time to think along the way. With his thoughts centered on her and his hopes resting on his friends, he turned and headed home just as the rock hit the bottom of the ravine.

His pace hurried as he approached the door. After the first few seconds inside, the gravity of the situation hit him like a club to the face. As he dropped to his knees he actually realized that he had been hit in the face and that the tears were from the pain of the blow. With another hit to the back of the head he blacked out. His mind sat baffled as to what had occurred. Who was in his house, why did they hit him? He felt his eyes flickering as he awoke, waiting for the rush of pain he knew would soon come. As the moments passed he…"

* * *

What did he do? I had recited the passage flawlessly up to that point, yet the rest of the words escaped me as I stood in the front of the room wearing a blank stare about as well as a donkey wears a dress. And much to my chagrin, everyone stared back. I looked like a fool, which was definitely par for the course as far as I was concerned. This was supposed to be my idea, my chance to show that I was worth something as a storyteller and I couldn't even tell a story I created. Even worse, I couldn't make anything up as I stood there, immobilized by the realization that I had been standing there just a little too long without saying a single word.

As the room stared anxiously I reached deep within myself to grasp some sort of inspiration. I quickly scanned the room, looking for possible objects I could use to further the story to an acceptable ending where I could regroup and nail a final version. My eye came upon a potted plant. Its bright green leaves arching over the stem with an explosion of color marking the flowers that bloomed at various branches rising from the base of the pot. I knew I had found something of note, I just wasn't sure how to take this unexpected and slightly bizarre boon. I would have plenty of time later to curse my decision to try and write this with an all-nighter. Then, as I watched the leaves slowly sway in the breeze, I got a brilliant idea. I gathered my thoughts and continued.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!" I let out a hideous roar as I hunched over, feigning pain, to try and distract my now curious audience from my blatant mishap. Hopefully the ploy would work and they would think nothing more of my pause. And with that I continued.

* * *

"He expected a sizeable amount of pain but nothing to the extent of what was racing through his head. He tried to draw breath but every time he did all he could let out were yelps and roars of the splitting headache he had acquired from the blows. As he reached up to hold his head he felt a warm wetness from the side of his head and at that moment realized he was bleeding. He pulled his hand back in front of him to confirm it, but he already knew he was a fountain of blood at this point. As he turned to inspect the area of the floor on which his head had been resting, he noticed a man dressed in a suit with sunglasses and dark hair that was seemingly slicked back. He quickly let out a small sigh of relief which came out more as a whimper. From what he could see the bleeding was more or less a trickle. Either that or he hadn't been out for too long. With that out of his mind he focused solely on this mysterious man who was standing a few feet away.

The man was facing him, but it didn't appear as though he was paying him very much attention from the way his head was tilted. As he slowly started to stand the man moved to try and prevent him from standing. As he reached out his arm to slam him back down, he grabbed the man's arm by the wrist and quickly twisted. As he heard a popping noise the man jumped back in obvious pain. He had to escape this situation any way he thought necessary if he was to find her and if this man had a problem with that it would soon be his death.

'What was that for?' the man exclaimed in a rough tone. 'If you think I'm the one who knocked you out you are sorely mistaken.'

'What else would you expect me to think?' he said.

The man, noting his defensive stance, brought his arms up and said, 'Take a look around you, does this look like your house?'

Then he realized the error in his thought process. In his haste to regain his ground he never realized that where he stood, in fact, was not his ground. He had been moved to another location. As he pondered this he realized that his transport had been the cause of the lack of blood on the floor.

'Ahh, so now it hits you. Not as hard as that club that that thug was carrying, but hard nonetheless. Speaking of hits, how's your head? I tried to clean it up a bit but you wouldn't stop bleeding. We managed to slow it, but you just keep leaking. By the way the name's Jonas. And yourself?'"

* * *

I let out a sigh of my own. The story we were supposed to come up with was to demonstrate a good development of a main character and his motives as well as his personality. I feel that even in this half-improvised state I did as well as I would have normally done even with a full night's sleep. Now came the difficult part as I would be forced to explain myself and my unorthodox methods to the professor. My writing style is unique, to put it lightly, and most of the teachers as well as the students get lost in my work. They often come out of the experienced more confused than anything else, but after a moment of speaking with them, my motives become clear. And so the interrogation began.

"Mr. Warren, care to explain why your character doesn't have a name?" the professor asked in a sarcastic, incriminating tone.

"Well Dr. Phillips, I took a different stance to this assignment. I see a character not as a person through which the action is seen, but rather an integral component of the world building process, especially if the world is seen through the character's eyes. The thing with names is that few people truly remember a character solely on the basis of their name. Also within the context of my story this tale is being told to a group, similar to this one, by a third party. With the degree to which names get changed as people pass stories orally, I thought it would be an intriguing exercise to keep this character nameless for the time being."

"As I'm sure you noticed, it became very difficult at times to keep up with who you were actually talking about with your overly abundant use of the words 'he' and 'him', did it not?"

"Actually, sir, it was quite easy since the other character had one major identifying feature. I simply referred to Jonas as 'the man' for a large portion of the time he was in the action. So by following the usual rules of context clues and intermittent use of the phrase 'the man' I was able to keep confusion of the two to a bare minimum while also keeping the integrity of my decision to keep the main character nameless."

"That is quite an interesting theory Mr. Warren. That is definitely something we will have to discuss later. In the meantime I think we will leave it at that and head home for the evening. Class is dismissed."

And with that I left the room. I wasn't sure yet as to how much trouble I was in for such an unorthodox decision, but I feel that my ragtag defense of it might have softened the blow quite a bit. It also gave me time to revise the work as the finished story was to be our final exam. As I reached my vehicle I rested my head on the roof in relief that I had somehow managed to recover from a certain disaster. That was the last thing I remembered.


End file.
